Field Camp House of Horrors

This is my submission for last month's Accretionary Wedge hosted by Ron Schott. My posting is late, so hopefully I'll sneak in under the wire - which is related my field camp story...

I was that student that took all my classes backwards. I took structure before mineralogy, field camp before structure, and the capstone historical geology course after taking Intro and a course called mass extinctions. I had two notebooks for each class, the one where I wrote all the class notes and the other is where I listed all the words I had to look up because I had NO clue what they meant. Somehow it all managed to work out, advising aside, and themes and relationships coalesced. I was lucky that most of my fellow classmates were supportive and taught me what they knew and I repaid my debt to other students when I eventually took mineralogy, igmetpet, structure, geochem, etc. I also had some great instructors who weren't going to hold anyone's hand and just pointed me to the raised bar...

My field camp was located on the NY/VT border in Castleton, VT and Whitehall, NY (well that's where most of our mapping was located). If you've ever been to the Taconics, you know that the rocks are pretty straightforward but the structure can be pretty ridiculous. My field partner was John Moss and his field camp experience was truly horrific. He was lucky enough to contract poison ivy in week one, rolled around in his sleeping bag and kept it for the ENTIRE duration. Yikes! John and I also shredded ourselves hiking one particular power line infested with blackberry brambles... they were so amazingly tasty, but we definitely paid for that day in blood. But those are the fun stories...

We managed to map 90% of field area without anyone getting upset or angry, although we were asked numerous times if we were looking for oil or gold and if we found any that we couldn't keep it. Fair enough, but we told them not to hold their breath. However, we met one interesting ol' Vermonter who was adamant that we not traverse his property. He was mean, swore at us, threatened us and was downright un-neighborly. So we did what any two young geologists would do given the predicament of not being able to walk the middle of the field map (yes, it was smack in the middle of our map) - we waited until Sunday morning service and pouring rain and walked his property. We were psyched to collect the data until... we found the reason why he didn't want us on his property. He had two huge fields filled with 50-gallon drums of "something," there were 18-wheeler bodies filled with "stuff," and what looked like huge (12-18 inch) oil pipeline shut off valves, 90's, 45's and t's. John and I also thought, in our infinite 20 year old wisdom, that it would be a good idea to trespass wearing a bright orange gore-tex jacket and a bright yellow rain parka... So we ran. And ran. And ran. We were scared out of our mind, envisioning Mr. Happy firing away at us from across the field. Needless to say, we survived but learned a wonderful life lesson - scattered outcrop isn't worth dying over...

But the real story, for me, of field camp occurred on the day I refer to as "penance." For what I'm not sure, but I paid for all my trespassing sins on August 9th, 1997. It started out with a hot drizzly, humid morning and we were mapping on a farm in Whitehall. There is nothing more enjoyable than field mapping scattered outcrop between cow piles, your compass takes on a wonderful odor after contact with the ground enough times. As we were traversing a sloped wooded area, I slipped on some wet leaves and managed to butt slide all the way to the bottom into a barbed wire fence. Sweet. I tore up my pants and both legs and even a bit of my arm. So I cursed out the leaves, and the rain, and the slope and told John I was done for the day and that we were going to the rope swing. THE rope swing I should say, because it was the most amazing rope swing I had ever experienced in New England. Someone had climbed a towering pine tree at the edge of the Mettowee River in Granville, NY and installed a 3" braided rope. You grabbed the roped and walked away from the river, upslope for ~30-40 feet where you found a tree with a tree stand ~10 feet high. So you climbed the tree stand, jumped out holding onto the rope, enjoyed a few seconds of free fall and then you were whipped down the slope out over the river and you could let go at your leisure (as long as you didn't slam into the opposite bank, which is how someone died a few years ago and so the pine tree was cut down).

However, on this day my hands were either sweaty, I was tired, or just not paying attention and when I jumped out of the tree stand, my hands slid down the rope, giving me a rope burn on both hands (I did hold on though so I didn't fly into the ground). Sweet action #2. So now I'm sliced and diced by the barbwire and have matching blisters the size of half dollars on each hand. Wow, what an awful day you say? It's not over...

Now I'm really in a bad mood, John drives us back to our campground at Bomoseen State Park, and he offers to make dinner. So I wander into the group camping area and my TA Nick Hayman, now at the Institute for Geophysics at the Jackson School, has a friend visiting from Albany. His friend has a chow. I love dogs and had spent the last 3 weeks approaching strange dogs in the process of mapping strangers property. Yet, here I am in "my" campsite, offer my hand to a wagging, tongue-lolling chow and, yup, CHOMP. 10 puncture wounds in my right hand. Sweet action #3. This is the point when it just became funny, and John and I laughed until our sides hurt (not right away though, I was definitely in pain).

I learned a lot of lessons during field camp, many were geology related but most were "life" related. I've heard so many amazing "field camp was awesome" stories over the last 14 years and I had an amazing time teaching field camp in graduate school, but the amazing time I had during my field camp was definitely altered by that one day.

There are also a few stories about a lost rock hammer, riding horses without saddles, feeding bulls gorp, and trying to trick Nick with furnace slag... but I'll save those for another time. Looking forward to reading others stories!!!

p.s. - I need to track down John so he can substantiate this story, I know it sounds crazy!